Archive for June, 2010

We had the pleasure of having Helene and Yesica, sister in law and niece, from France, spending a few days with us last week. As Helene said, their visit was short but memorable.

We couldn’t let them visit us without showing them one of our gems, the Great Barrier Reef so we booked with one of the many Great Barrier Reef cruises available and off we went. The trip to the reef was a bit rough but we all got there safe and sound. Little Nicholas was the one who probably enjoyed the trip most, with so much motion, he spent most of the trip happily asleep.

Three of us decided to go diving and only one wasn’t brave enough, sorry, wasn’t in the mood, for diving, so he went snorkelling. Can you guess who??????

The day was beautiful, we had a great time and the French girls were extremely impressed with the corals.

Port Douglas was only a short stop to have breakfast in our favourite cafe, although this time we were all a bit dissapointed with the food, which had been fabulous before. The markets were on, so Steve, Nicholas, Helene and Yesi went to have a bit of a walk while I just waited for them sitting on a bench. I had taken some car sickness pill which hadn’t agreed with me and I was feeling a bit “drunk”. I even had to make my way to the car on my own, since I was falling asleep on the bench and I was a bit embarrased about it. I sent Steve a text to let them know where I was going, and when he showed it to me, it didn’t make any sense at all.

But I felt much better after the delicious hand made ice cream that we had at Floravilla. The flavours were all very exotic. Steve went for the Chilli Chocolate and I tried the Goji Berry with Rainforest Honey Yoghurt. I cannot remember what the girls had, but they were also very excited about them.

We also had time to do a Daintree River Cruise aboard Solar Whisper, where we spotted a few crocodiles, snakes, frogs and birds. It is definetely one of the most beautiful places in the world.

It was already late afternoon by the time we made it to our accomodation in Cape Tribulation Cape Tribulation Beach House. We had two lovely cabins only a couple of minutes from the beach but, most importantly, from the bar. The girls and Steve, after a very early dinner, since we all forgot to each lunch, joined Mason’s Tours for a crocodile spotting night walk. And I, very happily, put the little one to sleep and went to bed as well at 8pm. I know, very very unSpanish but it felt like heaven.

The explorers had a good time although there was no croc to be spotted. However, they came back talking about cane toads, spiders, native mice, white tail rats, sleeping kingfishers, other birds, fish in the crystal clear bubbling brook, wood frogs and even fresh cassowary poo.

The plan for the morning after was to go jungle surfing but someone didn’t plan ahead and the tour was booked out. So instead, we started to make our own way back to Cairns, stopping at Mossman Gorge. There has been talks about a road being built in Mossman Gorge but when we got there we couldn’t see much happening. There are a few massive blocks of concrete which are the base for a boardwalk that will eventually go through the rainforest to the gorge. But up to day, everything is just as it was before and you still have to walk through the rainforest to get there. It was a cool and misty morning and we know that the water in Mossman Gorge is freezing. However, there were still a few brave people having a swin. None of us, though.

All the way back to Cairns, about 60 kilometres, little Nicholas was crying. We tried everything to make him stop and go to sleep. Will you believe he fell asleep only one block away from home? Our little prince!

Helene and Yesi are now back to Stanthorpe, Steve’s home town. And Yesi will be back in France very soon. It was great to have you over, girls. Now it is time for the two rascals, Flynn and Joseph, to come and visit. We look forward to seeing you two.

And everyone, keep tuned. There are lots of news coming up very soon. That’s all I can say for now.

Would you believe it if you were diving on the Great Barrier Reef and suddenly you found yourself surrounded by Minke Whales? That’s what happened to some divers off the coast of Cairns yesterday. So the whale watching season in Cairns has started just on time.

And in Kuranda, west of Cairns, three adults cassowaries and a juvenile one have been spotted, giving us all hope for this endangered species.

Meanwhile, we are working hard from our office overlooking the Coral Sea, keeping up with our Cairns Unlimited site, both in Spanish and in English, our Cairns Digital site renting underwater cameras and finalising the last steps before we launch our next enterprise, very early next month.

And our baby Nicholas is getting bigger and bigger, already four months old yesterday.

All our hard work is finally paying off and some days we are nicely surprised when we find that our pages are ranking very highly in the search engines. This morning I did a Google search for “Kakadu National Park” and our Spanish site about Kakadu, came up in number three out of 289.000 websites worldwide. The only ones that beat us were the Kakadu National Park official website and the Government one. Something to be very proud of!!!

As you can see, we cover all the destinations in Australia not only Cairns, Port Douglas and Tropical North Queensland.